How Important Is Keyword Research?

As a Portland-based Search Marketing consultant, I’ve spoken to scores of companies and agency partners and when it comes to keyword research, people usually have the following questions:

1) What is keyword research?
2) When should I do keyword research?
3) How do I use the results?

What is keyword research? Keyword research is the foundation of SEO and the starting place for optimizing any website. The process discovers the words and phrases people use to find a company’s products and services, and ranks those terms by search volume, difficulty and other factors.

The end result? A comprehensive list of terms that will be used to optimize your website and drive your content strategy.

When should I do keyword research? The best time for keyword research is before a site goes live, or prior to a site redesign. Keyword research directly informs what pages the website will have and the meta tags that will be used to optimize the site. Keyword research is the foundation of SEO, and everything starts with a thoroughly researched list of search terms.

How do I use the results of keyword research? After a comprehensive list of keywords is developed, an SEO professional will work with the client to choose 2-3 target keywords for each product or service. Those target terms are used to optimize a single page on the website, and the content and meta tags for that page will reflect the 2-3 target terms you’ve selected.
This process ensures there is one optimized web page for each product or service, and that the right page shows up in the search results.

Hope these tips were helpful. If you have any questions about keyword research or any other Search Marketing topics — including PPC management — drop me a line or call me at 971-409-6608 and let’s talk!